It may be a sport I find pretty dull to watch (sorry!) but thinking back to Paralympian Sophie Christiansen’s glee at her three gold haul was an inspiring moment of last summer which makes it even sweeter that she secured gold at the European Championships today, riding on Janeiro 6. She was joined on the Team Grade 1a podium by Anne Dunham, winning silver on LTJ Lucas Normark. The medals didn’t stop there, as Natasha Baker also got silver, this time in the Grade II event.

England have a mountain to climb after another fantastic day for Australia in the final test of the Ashes. Steve Smith reached his maiden century at The Oval and was still not out by the end of it after the Aussies declared on 492-9. With weather looking good for tomorrow, England at least managed to go the rest of the day without dropping their usual opening wicket and are 32-0 at the close of play as the chase begins.

The Belle Vue Aces pulled off a massive shock in speedway’s Elite League as the bottom side beat league leaders Swindon Robins 48-42 away from home. GP rider Matej Zagar led the charge with an impressive 15 points, whilst British biker Craig Cook also supplied 7 of his own. Having been deducted points, the Aces now move off the bottom, whilst Swindon are still top having had three more meetings than table neighbours Birmingham Brummies.

All British hopes at the latest Archery World Cup faded at the 1/16 stage as all four Brits left standing dropped out. Olympic class recurve archers were out after just one match with both Alan Wells and Naomi Folkard unable to stop their opponents. Paralympian Danielle Brown and John Stubbs also reached the same stage, both just 5 points from progressing to the quarter finals of the compound competition.

Swansea City and Tottenham Hotspur look all set to join Wigan in the Europa League group stage after each of them bagged five goals in opening legs of their final qualifying matches, against Dinamo Tblisi and Petrolul Ploiesti respectively.

At the time of writing, Justin Rose is the best Brit at The Barclays, one of the final PGA events of the year, but is some way off the pace in joint 17th. Rory McIlroy was 23rd on -1, whilst Lee Westwood hasn’t recovered well from his antics last week and is four over par. Over at the Johnnie Walker European Tour event, Mark Foster, Ross Fisher and Oliver Fisher are all in the top ten after day one.

England’s mixed doubles curling team pulled off a last gasp win against table toppers Australia at the Winter Games but it wasn’t enough to save them. The Aussies were already through to the semi finals in New Zealand but England ensured they didn’t finish bottom after scoring four points in the last two ends to steal the win.

England’s women’s hockey team reached their first European final since 1991 after winning a tight shootout against the Netherlands. A fortuitous own goal was the decider early on.

Both Great Britain’s men and women’s canoe polo teams are dominating at the European Championships. The girls stole the show with solid wins, 10-5 against Switzerland and 8-1 against the Netherlands, but the men had their own way with 7-2 and 5-3 wins against Sweden and Spain in Group C.

Wales’ Daniel O’Connell was whitewashed in both of his matches at the Czech Open to ensure he finished bottom of his qualifying group. England’s Liam Pitchford starts the table tennis World Tour event, both singles and doubles, in the main draw.

Mukhtar Mohammed and James Ellington both secured fourth in the Galan Diamond League after a disappointing World Championships, but it was William Sharman who impressed with third place in the 110m hurdles. Chris Tomlinson hardly covered himself in glory after his attack on Greg Rutherford and only reached seventh here in the long jump. Shana Cox finished fifth in a tight 400m race and Meghan Beesley came back from her debut Worlds to finish sixth at the Diamond League 400m hurdles.

British quartet Kate French, Samantha Murray, Freyja Prentice and Mhairi Spence all qualified for the finals of the Modern Pentatlon World Championships and their scores will all count for the team competition. The men weren’t all so lucky; Nick Woodbridge and Jamie Cooke made the cut, but Sam Weale’s pistol broke before the combined event and he had to borrow Joe Evans’ before the race, knocking him out of contention. Evans, at his first major, had a poor shoot that saw him miss out on qualification.

It was just the preliminaries today at snooker’s Paul Hunter Classic in Germany, but it sets up plenty of top matches in the first round proper. Mark Williams may have withdrawn, but fellow World Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan is paired with Qatar’s Ahmed Saif. His opponent at the Crucible, Barry Hawkins, earned a walkover to the second round when Jak Jones pulled out. Defending champion Mark Selby will face Tian Pengfei of China in his first match.

Nicki Ainge and Lisa John were England’s best entries into the women’s doubles at the World Tenpin Championships, finishing ninth with a score of 297.

Finally, the winter events keep rolling on in New Zealand and two Brits took to the halfpipe in Cardrona, finishing very close together. Dominic Harrington pipped teammate Ben Kilner by 0.34 points to finish one place ahead in 23rd.